I want to be an idol!

That was the thought pulsating through the minds of all the girls in the room. However, that phrase rung with a certain desperation in the head of one girl in particular.

Shim Chan Hee had auditioned more times than she could remember and failed each and every single time. While most people would have given up after three or four times, she was determined to be an idol even after all the failures.

This had been her dream ever since she was a little girl. She wanted to be in the spotlight, not because of the fame or money but because she wanted to make people happy. This dream was inspired by a personal experience.

When she was young she went to Seoul with her parents for a family visit but got separated from them in the huge crowd moving across the station. She wandered around scared and crying for her parents.

And then they appeared.

A random group of musicians were entertaining the people as they passed by and caught her eye, completely capturing her heart and mind while their music washed away her fears. The soothing female voice that sounded so young and pure and lively on which the artists were dancing and singing was so beautiful.

"Do you like it?" one of them had asked her once they noticed her staring in amazement and she nodded. "This is a song by a very talented idol called BoA. It's called Every Heart, don't you just love the words?"

Again little Chanhee nodded and the musician smiled. 

"How does this song make you feel?"

“Happy!” the little girl had answered.

“Good,” one of them replied as they patted Chanhee’s head happily, “That is our job as idols, to make people happy whenever they feel sad.”

It was then and there that Chanhee decided that she wanted to be like those people. She was going to be like these idols, making people happy wherever she could. But she didn’t want to entertain the people passing by on the streets; she wanted to let her voice be heard to the people all over the country who were sad or scared, hoping her song would cheer them up just like these people had done for her.

“NEXT!”

She blinked, snapping out of her memory as she felt the nerves creep up again. But she had to do this. She knew she could do this, she knew she could show these producers that she had potential, if only they would give her a chance.

“I’m number five, Shim Chan Hee,” she flashed a confident smile as she had gotten up from her seat and stood in front of the judges table. “In the future, I want to be an idol like BoA.”

BoA was a top selling solo artist who had made it big in both Asia and America. Chanhee always strived to be like the idols at the top because that was where the hardest working, most dedicated and most talented idols of all time were. And that was where she wanted to be.

She had gone through the auditions so many times, this just had to be the moment where all the experience paid off and they finally gave her a chance to…-

“Hmm…” the man with the sunglasses sneered as he turned to the man sitting next to him and whispered something. She still didn’t get why he was wearing sunglasses inside in the first place, it was rather rude but then again it wasn’t her right to judge. “Right… NEXT!”

All the hope she had, of this being the audition where she would finally get her chance to show the world what she had to offer, crashed through the ground. With a slight disappointed pout she returned to her seat. Even though she was used to the disappointment by now, she really had her hopes up for this one. The first time she had been rejected at an audition she barely managed to bit her lip and hold in her tears until she left the audition room but she had grown long past that.

“Number six, Kyu Yu Rin,” the girl introduced herself casually, her whole body radiating nervous energy as if she was more used to being in constant motion than standing still with all eyes on her doing nothing. Some of her brown hair was pulled back into a high ponytail and held in place with a simple scrunchy. “High school drop-out working part-time at a convenience store, but I wanna be a singer! I like to be noisy and scream along with people, seriously!”

Her voice was a pleasant alto but coupled with the ridiculous statement, Chanhee felt embarrassed for the girl.

“Babo…” Chanhee muttered under her breath as several other girls waiting in the room seemed to voice the same opinion. This girl was a bit of an idiot but Chanhee could tell that Yurin honestly wanted to impress the producers with her honesty and hoped that she would at least get one favourable mention for her enthusiasm and honest confession.

“Jinjja…” the producer sighed and made a shoo-motion. “NEXT!”

Angry and slightly defeated, Yurin returned to her seat as the next girl got up and tried her best to impress the producers.

After everybody had auditioned the producers took a moment to discuss amongst themselves. The girls who had auditioned waited on the edge of their seats for the verdict.

“Well then… I shall announce the applicants who were successful today…” the man announced as his eyes were locked on the clipboard in his hands. “The successful applicants are… No one!”

Chanhee let out a huge, weary sigh as she left the room, a planner in her hand as she counted out how many times she had auditioned and crossed out this date as well.

“Forty-nine auditions, forty-nine rejections, hmmm… The next audition will be number fifty?”

“Jinjja?” a hand spun her around and she was faced with the energetic Kyu Yurin and her rather gleeful expression. “During that audition, you didn’t look that awful!”

Chanhee clutched the day planner to her chest as if it were a diary, not really liking how incredibly happy Yurin seemed at the fact that Chanhee had failed once again.

“But this is great!” Yurin clenched her fists and raised them slightly in relief and triumph, “There is someone worse off than me! And this was just my thirty-ninth time!”

Chanhee circled around the shorter girl, “That’s not something to be proud of though, is it?”

Yurin shrugged, “You’re nineteen right? That’s already getting close to a late debut, right?”

“Aren’t you one year older than me?” she crunched her nose at the short girl. Even though she was pretty sure that she hadn’t meant to make her feel bad, what she said sent a cold knife through her chest, even though Yurin kept talking without noticing the affect she had.

“If you think that groups like Chocolate have 15-year olds…” she tapped her chin thoughtfully, “Recently, elementary school students, no, even kindergarten students are participating in idol competitions!” she was on a roll and it was hard for her to stop. It was like and inevitable car crash. Yurin was at the wheel and Chanhee was the proverbial car’s victim.

“Ah!” something had caught her eye and her little scream of delight caught Yurin’s attention. There was something on the ground and Chanhee crouched down to pick it up.

“What is it?”

“It’s a cute little phone strap,” she clutched the toy and pressed it against her face. “It feels gooooood!”

“Are you an idiot?” Yurin wondered. “Who picks things off the ground and presses it against their face?”

Chanhee however was just rejoicing. She had found it. This toy was a limited edition phone strap. At one of BoA’s press conferences this toy had been released to the press as a thank you for their continued support by SMentertainment. She had tried going online to buy the toy but either nobody was willing to part with it or the price had been knocked sky-high by people trying to outbid each other.

The two girls were suddenly blinded by the headlights of a car that stopped right in front of them. The sound of people filing out was all they heard as the two girls tried to blink the spots out of their eyes. The light went away when the three man who had been inside the car loomed in front of them, their suited bodies casting long shadows.

“Give that to me,” the man in the grey suit and sunglasses, hair slicked back and shiny patent leather shoes pointed at the little toy strap in Chanhee’s hands. He seemed to be the leader of this small group. Chanhee immediately bristled at the tone. No way was she going to lose this toy to some y old fan that might just as well have been a creepy sasaeng fan.

“Finders keepers!” she pouted, not wanting to give up her newly found toy. Without even a warning the man pulled out a gun and pointed it at her head threateningly. “Eh?”

They stood like that, frozen for a few seconds as Chanhee was staring down into the muzzle of the gun. Just when she was going through her flight-or-fight choice, Yurin’s voice cut through the pounding fear that tried to take over her mind. “Ah! I know! This is a set-up right?”

Chanhee stared over at the smaller girl before nodding, “Ah, you’re right!” she laughed, feeling the tension of the moment slip down her shoulders. Really, who would even own a gun in Korea unless they were part of the mafia? And even though this man looked the part, he looked a little too in character, this must be a costume!

“I mean, if it wasn’t then he’d probably already blown our brains out, right?” Yurin said cheerfully, eyes bright with excitement. “Where’s the camera?”

Chanhee started looking around desperately for a sign of a camera. Maybe they were on a reality show! Maybe they could get discovered that way! She had to make sure that the camera was capturing her more photogenic side and had a good shot of her so she could show her potential.

“Ah, it’s in here, right?” Yurin poked her finger into the gun’s muzzle without any fear. She loved reality shows, there was always that one person who was an idiot enough to not figure out that the joke was on them, but Yurin wasn’t that kind of idiot. The audience would probably love her for being so quick on her feet.

The man jerked his arm back and fired the gun into the air. Both girls jumped into each other’s arms and screamed as an air duct above them started spraying out steam from the ceiling and created a faint curtain of hot steam between them.

“Run…” Chanhee said to Yurin who looked up confused. “RUN AWAY!” she grabbed hold of Yurin’s hand and ran back into the direction of the studio.

As they raced back into the studio, Yurin ran as fast as her short legs could carry her as she followed Chanhee. “What the hell was that?” she screamed. The sound of following footsteps and a quick glance behind them confirmed that they were now being chased by these strange men, though thankfully the gun had been put away so they wouldn’t seem a suspicious. But it didn’t make the situation less scary.

The girls screamed as Yurin cast around desperately for a way out. She spotted a door leading to a stairwell and pulled Chanhee inside with her.

“GO GO GO GO GO!” she yelled as she pushed Chanhee ahead of her. The loud bang of the door bursting open told them that those strange men were still hot on their heels.

“Who are they? Why do they have guns?” Chanhee raced up the stairs, two steps at a time.

“How should I know?! I thought they were filming something!” Yurin replied, wheezing a little bit at the pace that they were going in. bursting through the fourth floor door they looked around the crowded halls and set off in a random direction, not paying attention to the people they were bumping into. They ducked aside into a slightly quieter hall, yanking open another door and slipping into a dark storage room before closing the door quietly and hid themselves. Not a second alter they heard cursing from the hallway as footsteps raced past their door.

Trying hard to keep as quiet as possible while catching their breaths, they froze at the sound of a woman’s voice. Ducking down behind a bunch of chairs and tables stacked near the door, they peeked over them curiously to see a woman arguing with a much younger man.

“Tell me, which woman were you with yesterday?” her voice sneered. The woman was tall and skinny, her hair was pitch black and cut into a short bob that accentuated her strong jawline. Chanhee and Yurin both felt their jaws hit the ground as the woman launched forwards and grabbed his collar, pulling his face inches from hers with a look that seemed to seduce him as the younger man got weak in the knees. “You know they could get kicked out of the program for those kinds of acts, and it could cost you your head for guiding them… naughty naughty boy…”

“I-I’m sorry,” the boy stumbled slightly. “T-they begged me… t-they seemed desperate…”

The woman leaned even closer, “Seems to me like you were the desperate one though,” she breathed into his ear as her other hand moved over in between them and a moment later the boy froze with an arched back, “Maybe we should settle that little problem…”

Chanhee watched in a mixture of fascination and shock, unsure of what to do or think. Was this woman seducing him or punishing him? Yurin, however, was trying to fight down the violent disgust she felt at the sight of this elderly lady harassing the younger boy like that. Whatever their relationship was with each other, this was not something she was interested in seeing.

“Uwaaaaah!” Yurin backed away, groping backwards blindly and managed to knock down a whole stack of chairs and a desk. The two people, who had thought they were alone, immediately caught the sight of the two girls.

“Uh…” Chanhee gave a super polite bow, not really sure how to react to the circumstances. “Sorry for disturbing you two! Uh, please carry on!”

Yurin also flashed a little fake smile as she nodded with the reaction before the two of them fled the little storage room and rushed into a room marked “Changing Room 2” where they found themselves amidst rack and racks of various clothes, costumes, footwear, headgear and accessories.

“That was a live action PDA+19 show just now!” Yurin exclaimed, disgust still etched upon her face as she threw her hands up.

“What’s PDA+19?” Chanhee blinked confused.

“Don’t you know?” Yurin blinked at the innocence of her companion and took it upon herself to educate the other girl. “PDA+19, it’s like you see in those drama’s… Public Display of Affection but with an adult rating, you know? She was probably three times his age… And her clothes… Dominatrix probably! Very adult… like making love and… it’s just so sickening!” she shivered and rubbed her arms furiously at the thought.

“Let’s not talk about that,” Chanhee quickly sighed in frustration, annoyed that the other girl could get side-tracked by a couple like that. “We better concentrate on how to escape from those guys! How did we even get involved in this? I seriously don’t understand!”

Those men were probably combing the building looking for them so they couldn’t possibly leave this room and calling the police wasn’t even an option since she had no reception in this building. What could she do? Chanhee leaned against the rack of costumes when it suddenly dawned on her. Throwing her bag to the ground, she kicked off her shoes and started taking off her shirt. Turning she could see Yurin watching her, bug-eyed.

“You have to take off your clothes too!” she reached for Yurin’s shirt to help the shell-shocked girl but Yurin pushed her away in horror.

“What? Please don’t tell me you wanna-”

“Yah babo!” Chanhee barked out. Seriously, this girl was so stuck on this PDA thing. “We’re going to disguise ourselves!”

“Eh?” Yurin blinked stupidly and took a look around. Finally it dawned to her, “Oh!”  

Without another word the two stripped out of their clothing and picked matching outfits, hiding their hair underneath a hat, wearing baggy jeans and sunglasses that covered most of their face, boots, a loose shirt, clunky silver accessories and a leather jacket, quickly checking their experience before opening the door and peeking out.

Seeing that the coast was clear, Chanhee took the lead. “Let’s go!”

Walking down the crowded hallways they pretended to look like they had business in this building felt nerve wracking. There was a bunch of girls mingling around and it seemed like all of them were staring at them.

“Aish…” Yurin cursed under her breath. “What are we going to do? Our disguises ! They probably already know we’re girls dressed as guys! This stuff only works in drama series where everyone is stupid!”

“Will you calm down?” Chanhee whispered back frantically. “They don’t know that!”

“Oppa~” a girl wearing a bunny suit called out to them. They stiffened and turned towards her with a frozen smile on their face. The bunny girl’s friends pushed their blushing friend forwards who was giggling like a little girl. “Are you guys lost? Maybe we can help you?” she batted her eyes.

“Uh, no…” Realization dawned on Chanhee. She had seen girls act like this before, trying to charm guys with her fake aegyo. She knew because she had acted like this before in front of cute guys. But this time, she was the cute guy! Yurin seemed to realize the same thing and was about to give the girl a probably rude answer when she caught the sight of something over Chanhee’s shoulder and a look of panic crossed her face. Yurin turned to face the bunny girl and leaned against one of the walls to try and look cool.

“Yeaaaah… We’re a bit lost,” she yawned, trying to deepen her voice without sounding ridiculous. “Ahum. Uh, we were just wondering if you girls could, uh, take us to the… uh…”

Chanhee glanced back over her shoulder, wondering what had freaked Yurin out. The sight of their pursuers sent her to the side of one of the bunny-girl’s friends who was decked out as a cheerleader.

“Auditions! The men’s auditions! Yeah, uh…” Chanhee coughed, deepening her voice also. Putting an arm awkwardly around the cheerleader’s shoulders she grimaced when she felt the girl swoon a little bit. This was definitely not how she pictured today to be. “Could you? The studio is kind of big…”

With the two girls on their arms and the rest of the friends following behind them they passed the men in dark suits who only gave a slightly glance at the girls surrounding Chanhee and Yurin before taking off again.

“Safe!” Yurin breathed.

“Did you say something, oppa?” the bunny girl smiled prettily at Yurin and the girl-disguised-as-a-guy shuddered at the fake aegyo of the girl.

Chanhee quickly tried to cover for her comrade, “Aniyo, he meant… Safe because we won’t be late for our auditions because of you girls, right?”

“Yeah, yeah!” Yurin nodded enthusiastically and have Chanhee a thumbs-up. “Good cover-up!”

“Cover up?” the girls looked at Yurin curiously again.

“Look, here we are!” Yurin pointed to a sign on a big set of double doors that said ‘auditions – men’, happy to distract the girls away from her slip of the tongue. “Well, it was nice meeting you girls but we have to get going now!”

“Bye,” the girls waved goodbye, looking seriously disappointed. “Come find us afterwards, ok?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure!” she gave them a big fake grin, her dimples coming into play. The girls sighed or squealed in pleasure which startled Yurin who jumped behind Chanhee to hide from their love-stricken stares.

“Uh, thanks girls,” Chanhee gave them a tiny wave and a small smile. The girls gave the same reaction to her as they did to Yurin and she found herself so startled by their blatant admiration that she stumbled backwards right into Yurin and through the doors to the men’s auditions/ girls were damn scary! Especially dressed up as bunnies. And Chanhee was about to say that aloud when bright lights suddenly blinded them.

“We’re starting! Please get in line!” a voice, made louder through a megaphone, echoed.

“What the-” a group of guys who were dressed in similar outfits as the two girls ran right into them, pushing them right into the area where the guys were lining up to begin dancing while cameras filmed them, probably for a screen test. Chanhee and Yurin were pushed right in front of the camera as the guys all danced an obviously pre-rehearsed dance.

“Whoa…” Chanhee and Yurin watched the guys going through the simple choreography, unconsciously memorizing the footwork and dance moves as they stood a little bit off to the side. Chanhee looked around the room, feeling slightly embarrassed that they had crashed an audition but that feeling soon turned into panic again when she saw the man who had pulled the gun on them lurking behind the cameras and looking around for them.

“Dance!” Chanhee pushed Yurin towards the middle of the group of guys.

Yurin looked bewildered, “Wae?”

“Dance or get shot,” Chanhee hissed. Yurin caught sight of them and ran into the middle of the group, both of them hoping they would be indistinguishable from the dancing guys. It only took them half a beat to fall into step with the rest of the dancers and they put their all into it, desperately. Their efforts didn’t go unnoticed as the producer in charge of the set and his guest noticed them right away.

“Aigoo…” the producer smiled a bit, looking at the two in the back. “And here I though they couldn’t dance! They’re pretty good!”

The woman in all black with her black hair cut at sharp angles had her eyes locked on the two figures, a small smile pulling up one corner of her lips. Their view of the dancers was momentarily ruined though by three men in dark suits, who walked across the set, completely ignoring the rolling cameras and the cries of dismay from the crew.

“Yah!” the producer left his guest’s side, shouting at the intruders. “Who are you people and why are you on my set?!”

At this distraction, Chanhee pulled Yurin away and they ran off in the opposite direction of them in suits. The producer, however, caught sight of the two running for it and immediately gave chase after the promising young ‘men’.

“Yah, wait! Please don’t go, wait just a moment!” he went flying as the dark-haired woman pushed him away in her bid to chase down the two disguised girls. Chanhee and Yurin, meanwhile, had run off to an empty set, slowing when they saw that no-one was following them. Their relief was short-lived though when a voice called to them from the shadows of the opposite end of the room.

“Excuse me,” they froze and turned around, seeing the guy who had pulled the gun earlier walking towards them with his two lackeys right behind him. “Have you seen two high school girls?”

Struck with fear they were speechless, they could only keep their eyes on the floor and stay silent, sure that he would be able to tell they were girls as soon as he got a closer look at them or heard them speak.

“I’ve seen them,” a voice rang out. Spinning around, Chanhee and Yurin immediately recognized the woman they had accidentally spied on in the storage room.

“Dominatrix!” Yurin exclaimed. Chanhee immediately clamped her hand over Yurin’s mouth, hoping to god that this woman wouldn’t give up their identities to these men. Although their disguise had fooled the girls from before, Chanhee got the impression from this dark-haired woman that she was absolutely NOT fooled. The mischievous smile on her face while the ‘dominatrix’ woman pranced over filled Chanhee with dread and anxiety.

“They went that way.” The unexpected reply unleashed a flood of relief in the two disguised girls as the man offered an ‘excuse me’ and he and his man were gone without a second glance at Chanhee or Yurin.

“Ah, we’re saved!” Yurin let out and explosive sigh of relief as soon as the man had left.

Chanhee was relieved and grateful at being delivered from the gun-wielding men and bowed politely to the black-haired woman. “Kamsahamnida!”

Instead of answering, the woman walked forward and took off both their caps and their sunglasses, allowing their long hair and feminine features to be seen.

“As I thought,” the woman was talking to herself and seemed extremely excited, ignoring Chanhee’s expression of gratitude. “This is great!”

Before either of them could as the strange woman what she meant, her eyes focused on the two girls in front of her and clapped them on the shoulders soundly, “Do the two of you want to be idols?”

“Idols?”

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First chapter! What do you guys think?